Over its years of competing with Boeing and Lockheed Martin for deals, SpaceX has secured $1.6bn in contracts with the US government for resupply missions, and hundreds of millions more in contracts with private companies seeking to deliver satellites into orbit. Sunday’s launch was the first since that fleet retired, and part of the center’s transition to a spaceport open to public and private missions. Astronauts flew from Kennedy on missions to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and in the 1980s the center was home to Nasa’s reusable space shuttles. The astronauts will later load up the capsule with experiments to be returned to Earth and recovered by scientists after landing.įor most of its decades in service, the Kennedy Space Center has served the US as one of the federal government’s most important spaceports. The capsule’s cargo includes an experimental spacecraft self-navigation system a medical experiment on immune system diseases an instrument to measure ozone, aerosols and other gases in the atmosphere and the Lightning imaging sensor, a device to measure lightning strikes and their intensities around the world. The capsule is due to dock at the station two days after launch, when astronauts will use a 57ft robotic arm to secure it. The Dragon capsule lifted by the rocket carries nearly 5,500lb of supplies, experiments and research equipment for the six astronauts – two Americans, three Russians and one Frenchman – onboard the station. “That 1% chance isn’t worth rolling the dice.
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